Earnest Research Scores $15M Series B Financing

The round was led by Pivot Investment Partners, with participation from existing investors Greycroft, Osage and Bonfire Ventures. The funding will be used to support the growth of Earnest's data platform, continued product innovation and the expansion into new industry verticals.

Founded in 2012, Earnest was the first company to launch a self-service data analytics platform that provides companies, investors and consulting firms a near real-time view into the consumer economy. Today, thousands of business professionals, investors and consultants leverage the Earnest platform to make more informed strategic and investment decisions.

"We are proud of what we have accomplished over the past seven years. Earnest has established a leadership position in a large and rapidly growing market," said Earnest Founder and CEO, Kevin Carson. "The opportunity in front of us is enormous, and we are aggressively investing in talent, new data sets and product innovation to expand our platform. We are excited to bring Pivot on as an investor, as they share our vision for what we are building and have a deep understanding of our business."

Earnest works with industry-leading brands across the consumer landscape, from restaurants and grocers to high-growth ecommerce companies and Fortune 50 retailers. Clients leverage the Earnest platform to benchmark competitive and customer health metrics, follow customer behavior outside of their four walls and track growth trends in their industry. Earnest has helped its clients answer questions such as:

How has Kohl's benefitted from its partnership with Amazon?
How did Burger King's rollout of the Impossible Whopper in select markets impact sales?
How does Chewy stack up against Petsmart and Petco in terms of market share and customer lifetime value?

"Earnest's distinctive platform provides real-time insights on company performance and customer behavior across thousands of consumer-facing companies with industry-leading accuracy. We have been tracking the company for a while and are delighted to be leading this growth capital round alongside a distinguished group of investors. We see substantial opportunity for Earnest to integrate new datasets, expand into adjacent client segments, and introduce additional offerings for the benefit of its fast-growing roster of customers," noted Dinkar Jetley and Akbar Poonawala of Pivot Investment Partners.

"Kevin and team have built Earnest into a world-class research provider with an unmatched ability to distill complex data into actionable insights," said John Elton, Partner, Greycroft. "Their product has become an essential part of our own diligence and analysis process as well as many others within the Greycroft portfolio."

About Earnest

Founded in 2012, Earnest provides restaurants, retailers, e-commerce companies and investment clients with critical knowledge on consumer spending habits to power data-driven business decisions. With accurate and near real-time data on sales, orders and other purchasing trends, Earnest enables companies to deeply understand customer habits and gain valuable intelligence on competitors. For more information, visit earnestresearch.com.

About Pivot Investment Partners

Pivot Investment Partners LLC is a team of CEO-level operating executives who have grown and transformed financial services businesses around the world. The firm works closely with a select set of high-potential FinTech and InsurTech companies, investing operating expertise and capital in their success and accelerated growth. For more information, please visit www.pivotinvestment.com.

About Greycroft

Greycroft is a leading venture capital firm focused on investments in the Internet and mobile markets known for helping entrepreneurs gain visibility, build relationships, bring products to market, and build successful businesses. Greycroft manages over $1 billion and has made over 200 investments in leading companies including Acorns, Huffington Post, Icertis, Plated, Shipt, TheRealReal, Trunk Club, and Venmo. For more on Greycroft, visit https://greycroft.com.